


We Could Be The Balance

by forcesofbalance



Category: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), One Shot, Post-TLJ, TLJ Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 09:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13268430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forcesofbalance/pseuds/forcesofbalance
Summary: Two months following the Battle of Crait, Rey has gotten nowhere in her efforts to find information on Force Bonds — namely, how to break them.





	We Could Be The Balance

It had been two months since the Battle of Crait. 

In that time, Rey had struggled to keep a firm grip upon the connection that bridged between her mind and that of the new Supreme Leader Ren. There were periods of time in which it appeared to obey her command, when she could feel his crackling presence closing in uninvited, only to be met with the comfortably protective walls she had built through mediation and sheer luck alone. Other times, however, her control over the mysterious tie binding them together behaved more like sand, falling through her fingers as his dark, pained eyes became solid in her mind’s eye. In those instances, she did her best to ignore him, continuing about her business as if she were deaf to his murmured words, his injured remarks, his angry shouts. She had hoped he would give up, would shut their connection off himself with his superior training in the arts of the Force, but he always stayed until the connection faded away on its own, satisfied with the fresh wounds of loneliness and betrayal burrowed deep within the hearts of its misfortunate victims. 

Desperate for answers and understanding, Rey waited until the Resistance had finally acquired a temporary lodging with enough room for most people to have their own quarters. There still weren’t many of them left, aside from the sparse new recruits they’d encountered in their strategic hops from allied planet to allied planet, never staying in one place for too long as they evaded the First Order’s furious search. She pulled out the ancient Jedi texts, the novels that had whispered to her mind as she had prepared to leave Ahch-To with the ludicrous idea that she would have the power to bring Ben Solo back with her. The texts had proven to be a near-impossible feat, their words tangling hopelessly together each time the former scavenger attempted to make sense of them. There would be no answers there, not until she had practiced deciphering less daunting works first. 

The only person she could have turned to was Luke, and now he was gone. Her only chance at finally mastering and learning to tame the raw power within her, of providing the enlightening knowledge of the texts laying uselessly before her, had sunken into the embrace of the Force, forever gone from the world. She felt tears of grief and desperate frustration sting at her eyes, prompting her to scrub fiercely at them. 

_He’s not the only one who was willing to teach you,_ whispered a treacherous voice from the back of her mind. _Ben Solo has studied these texts already. He would be able to help you understand what connects your minds._

Feeling horror and shame lance through her chest at once, Rey snapped the book shut with a shaky exhale of breath. No. Absolutely _not. _She would not grant him the satisfaction of knowing he was her only hope.__

____

__

_He would never agree to begin with,_ she hissed to that secret voice. _And I want nothing to do with him either._

Eager to dispel the flurry of emotions tumbling through her, Rey rose to her feet and snatched her staff, passing the hidden place two halves of Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber lay dormant. Yet another problem she was unable to fix on her own without guidance. Her blood was thrumming as it had in the snow-laden forest of Starkiller Base, all that time ago. That restless energy directed her through the mostly-empty halls, past the clamor of the caf in the midst of serving dinner she had no appetite for; out the doors and into the secluded grove of the towering jungle trees native to Utapau. 

Rey wasted little time. The instant she was certain she was alone, she began to move through the stances she’d used when training on Ahch-To, treating a grey boulder covered in vines as her opponent. She swiped without faltering, grasping the shape of the restless, distressed power within her and channeling it into each deliberate jab and step she took. Everything fell away — her inner turmoil, the distant trills of tropical avians, the expectations everyone in the Resistance placed on her shoulders that grew heavier with every awed look and hopeful smile. At last, her senses closed in, focused on her alone, each breath echoing loudly in her ears. 

“Rey.” 

Her blood ran cold, her muscles stiffening as she immediately pulled her weapon close to her chest in a defensive position. No. _No._ It couldn’t be him. _It wasn’t him._

She had thought the world falling away was simply the product of her intense concentration, but clearly she had been sorely mistaken. She should have recognized that familiar thrum of energy, the synced feeling of her heartbeat falling into rhythm with another’s…

“Your stance leaves you open to attack from the sides. Keep a wider position, lower to the ground.” Ben’s voice was soft, but held a hard edge within his tone that didn’t go unnoticed. “Your enemies won’t always attack from the front.” 

She grit her teeth as alarm arced down her spine, her feet sending her spinning around to face him directly. He had crept up behind her in that moment of indecision, his words delivered with an underlying sense of smugness, originating from the space just beside her ear. His proximity sparked against her awareness with the same feral energy that his lightsaber carried, though the danger it warned of was far different. His umber eyes were flat and guarded, nearly black in the fading light softening the leaves of the canopy overhead, and he was watching her closely, as if preparing for her next action. 

There were a hundred things she wanted to say to him in that moment. She wanted to turn tail and run as she had the first time their minds had connected, when she’d shot him unsuccessfully with her blaster before fleeing from his image. She wanted to scream at him until she was hoarse, to recount every injury he’d inflicted against her, physical or otherwise. That forbidden, secret corner of her mind wanted to take his hand and remind him of the complete feeling of _balance_ that had overwhelmed them when their fingertips had brushed in her lonely hut on Ahch-To, of what their intersecting destinies were truly meant to look like. 

Instead, she lifted her chin and held herself taller, putting on a mask just as he had, the truth of Ben Solo locked firmly behind the guarded stare of Supreme Leader Ren. 

“Ben,” she responded simply, hazel meeting umber unwaveringly. 

He drew in a breath that echoed across their bond, a soft tug on a spider’s thread that shivered throughout the entire web. He stepped backwards, the same spark of conflict she’d seen on his face in the lift just before he’d delivered her to Snoke’s throne room — the first time she had addressed him with his true name — flashing through his eyes. His jaw worked, his gaze flickering across her face as if in search of something hidden within her expression. He did not correct her, did not protest, did not waste his breath pretending that he no longer belonged to the name Leia Organa and Han Solo had given him. 

_Perhaps the lock isn’t as quite as secure as you thought._

“You’ve finally decided to acknowledge that our bond still exists? That I’m not just some figment of your imagination to be ignored?” His gloved hands became fists at his sides, conveying the emotion he struggled to conceal from his voice. 

Rey glared at him then, anger burning through her veins in a burst of emotion. “You _made your choice,_ Ben. I helped you, I _begged_ you, I thought...” She shook her head sharply when her voice quavered beneath the tempest raging within her chest, threatening to shred her ribcage into dust. “We chose our paths. They lead in different directions. This bond is the last thing keeping them together and I’m trying to find a way to cut it off. In the meantime, I’m not going to listen to you try and get me to change my mind and I’m not going to talk in circles trying to get you to change yours. The sooner this is broken, the sooner the both of us can finally focus without worrying about having our minds invaded by one another.”

“No.” 

His answer was quick and instinctive, his teeth setting in a conscious effort to resist the habit of working his jaw. The guarded look faltered once more and Rey watched it fall away completely, the expression fluctuating between anger and an alien vulnerability. It shocked her like a bucket of ice-cold water had been dumped over her head, but she brushed the sensation away to instead meet his resistance with a dumbfounded, irritated look. 

“ _No?_ You will achieve nothing from continuing to terrorize me. The bond is growing stronger — I can see the shape of the window behind you. I can feel the temperature of the room you’re standing in. This is becoming dangerous for both of us. How could you not _see_ that?” 

“I don’t care about that,” he grit out. He seemed unwilling to proceed in the conversation, unwilling to fall over the precipice they were precariously balanced upon. There was something burning in his eyes, some conflict that stretched beyond the First Order and the Resistance. 

“How could you _not?_ You’re _Supreme Leader Ren._ ” The title felt like bitter poison on her tongue. “The tactical advantage of catching a glimpse of Resistance plans or their location can’t possibly outweigh the risk of having that glimpse be two-sided. Why would you want to keep this?” 

“Because of you.” 

Ben’s voice was quiet and soft, so different from the anger he was capable of. His expression was resigned, his gaze no longer meeting hers, preparing for a hundred different reactions. Rey stood speechlessly, hazel eyes wide as they moved over the face turned away from her. The tempest within her hung suspended and eerily still for a moment, shock freezing its chaos before everything seemed to implode. 

“How dare you,” she whispered, her voice wavering and choked with emotion. “How _dare_ you!” 

His eyes met hers then, wide with alarm. This was clearly not a reaction he had anticipated. She began to advance toward him, forcing him to stumble backwards away from her fury. 

“You,” she hissed, swiping her staff in a messy arc he was forced to duck to avoid, “ _chose this!_ This is because of you and your _blind_ thirst for power! After all that, you don’t have the _right_ to–“ 

“I _know!_ ” He stumbled again when her staff made contact with his right side, trying and failing to put more distance between them. 

She could see the glint of his lightsaber at his belt through the tears in her eyes — the lightsaber she had secured there two months ago, when she fled from Snoke’s burning throne room with two halves of Luke’s lightsaber in her grasp — yet he made no move to draw it against her onslaught, no move to fight back at all. 

“I _know_ , Rey. I have no right. But that changes nothing. What you mean to me...it hasn’t changed.” 

When she swiped at him again, he managed to catch it this time, to still her attacks and force her to simply look into his face, open and vulnerable and filled with anger and pain. All around them, the hum of the Force was near-palpable, intense and singing with power. 

“ _Damn_ the First Order. Damn the Resistance. The Jedi, the Sith, the Knights of Ren. Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader. The Light and the Dark.” His gloved fingers gripped the staff fiercely, his dark gaze intense and bitter and pleading all at once. “Without this bond, without you, I feel as if the conflict in my soul will tear me apart. In these moments, I feel balanced. There is nothing in this galaxy I am so certain of.” 

Her tears had escaped her eyes, tracing her freckled cheeks, and she felt as weak as a branch trembling in the wind. The fight within her had extinguished in the gust of his proclamation, replaced instead with those treacherous emotions she had locked away deep within her mind, desperate to snuff them out. A hundred different words tumbled in her throat, too hopelessly tangled to be unraveled into a comprehensible response. 

Ben released his hold on her staff, remaining in one place, looking at her as if she was the only thing she cared about in that instance. Nothing else mattered; nothing else existed beyond their bond, beyond her. 

Suddenly, without being wholly conscious of the action, she let the weapon fall to the ground and threw her arms around him, shaking with emotion as the tears stung at her eyes once more. His hands were at her back and her hair, gloves removed, hugging her just as tightly as she embraced him. He was trembling just as she was, his face hidden at her neck and her cheek pressed against his dark, unruly hair. They were overwhelmed with emotion, with the triumphant singing of the Force in their veins, the world finally feeling _right_ as an invisible key fit into place. 

“We could be the balance,” he murmured into her loose hair, leaning into her skin. She felt warm tears on her neck, just as hers fell onto his cloak. “I think...this is what we’re meant to be.” 

_This is what we’re meant to be._ The Force itself seemed to thrum in agreement, light and darkness entwined to create a peaceful energy, calm and right and whole. 

“Not just light, not just dark,” she whispered, the realization dawning upon her. “ _Grey._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a quick little drabble I wrote at a friend’s request, but I had so much fun writing it that I had to post it here. ♥
> 
> Reviews are highly appreciated!


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